
Empty envelopes of opened vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary are stacked on a table at King County Elections in Renton, Washington on March 10, 2020. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)
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Empty envelopes of opened vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary are stacked on a table at King County Elections in Renton, Washington on March 10, 2020. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)
By Whitney Webb – Nov 9, 2020
Untested AI software was used to verify mail-in ballot signatures in highly contested localities like Clark County, Nevada. The company that produces it has close ties to Lockheed Martin and Microsoft and its founder has a bone to pick with Donald Trump.
Though accusations of election fraud in the 2020 US presidential election have been swirling across social media and some news outlets for much of the past week, few have examined the role of a little known Silicon Valley company whose artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm was used to accept or reject ballots in highly contested states such as Nevada.
That company, Parascript, has long-standing cozy ties to defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and tech giants including Microsoft, in addition to being a contractor to the US Postal Service. In addition, its founder, Stepan Pachikov, better known for cofounding the app Evernote in 2007, is a long-standing and 2020 donor to Democratic presidential candidates.
Parascriptโs AI software was used during this election in at least eight states for matching signatures on ballot envelopes with those in government databases in order to โease the workload of staff enforcing voter signature rulesโ resulting from the influx of mail-in ballots.ย Reuters, which reported on the use of the technology,ย asked the companyย to provide a list of counties and states using its software for the 2020 election. Parascript, however, declined to supply the list, replying, instead, that their clients โincluded 20 of the top 100 counties by registered voters.โ
Despite not receiving the official list from Parascript,ย Reutersย was able to compile its own partial list, which revealed that several counties in Florida, Colorado, Washington, and Utah, among others, utilized the AI software to determine the validity of ballots.ย Reutersย also reported that Clark County, Nevada, which isย one of the hotspotsย ofย litigation between the Trump and Biden campaignsย andย fraud allegations, was one that used the software.ย Reutersย was able to determine how the software was used in some counties, with many counties allowing the software to approve anywhere from 20 to 75 percent of mail-in ballots as acceptable. For several counties included in theย Reutersย list,staff reviewed 1 percent or less of the AI softwareโs acceptances. Figures were not available for Clark County, Nevada.
Prior to the election, concerns were raised regarding the efficacy of AI signature-verification software for use on mail-in ballots. For instance, Kyle Wiggers, a journalist who covers AI forย Venture Beat,ย noted thatthe accuracy of such systems is believed to vary between 74 and 96 percent. However, he also stated that โwe donโt have benchmarks from the systems that are in use to verify signatures on these mail-in ballots. We basically have to go by what the manufacturers of the systems are telling us, which is that the systems are accurate.โ Given that states and counties have relied on companies themselves for information on the accuracy of their algorithms, it becomes important to take a deeper look into Parascript, their partners, and their software.
An Untested โXpertโ
This May, Parascriptย announced a new versionย of its automated signature-verification software, called SignatureXpert, which the company said was able to โevaluate ballot signatures and compare them with voter record signatures pulled from driverโs licenses,โ adding that โwith advanced machine learning image perfection, even low-resolution driverโs licenses can be used.โ
At the time of the announcement, Parascriptโs vice president of marketing and product management, Greg Council,ย stated:
โWe did a lot of research with our partners and found oftentimes the most efficient way for municipalities to create voter signature databases was to pull them from signatures on driverโs licenses. . . . But we found that these images are often stored at lower resolutions. With our new advanced machine learning image processing, we can take lower resolution images and improve them to high levels of quality that enable automated signature verification to be used on more ballots.โ
What Council did not state is that most driverโs license signatures are acquired via an electronic tablet or signature pad, which often results in a very different signature than one written on a paper ballot.
Regarding the use of their new SignatureXpert software in the 2020 election, the company stated in aย blog postย that โASV [automated signature verification]is used today in the vote-by-mail processes of many states to provide solid assurances that each vote is treated fairly and thoroughly reviewed. For this election, some of the larger cities and counties in America are deploying ASV software from Parascript to assist their verification teams to produce accurate results.โ
Parascriptโs October 30 blog post on its softwareย also noted thatย that the algorithm had yet to be verified for use on mail-in ballots, but it attempted to obfuscate this fact. In response to the question โIs this proven technology?โ the post responded:
โIn the case of Parascript, the answer is yes. The AI that powers SignatureXpert has been field-proven in the banking industry for over a decade and is trusted to produce reliable voting results. States such as Oregon, Colorado, Washington and Utah use it to ensure that every election is efficient, legitimate and secure. Voters can also be assured knowing SignatureXpert is always used to assist, not replace, election officials so there is no worry that the ASV bots will secretly throw the election!โ
While the AI that powers SignatureXpert was tested for use in the banking industry, it has not been tested for use on mail-in ballots. Furthermore, the statement that several states use the software โto ensure that every election is efficient, legitimate and secureโ omits the fact that the version of SignatureXpert to be used on mail-in ballots was not announced until this May and had yet to be tested for mail-in ballots, having only been previously used in Colorado to verify signatures on petitions. In addition, the claim that SignatureXpert only assists and does not replace election officials varies by county, as each county decides if there is human oversight and to what extent. As previously mentioned, Reuters found that several counties only have humans review 1 percent or less of ballots accepted by Parascriptโs software.
Also notable is Parascriptโs concluding statement regarding its promotion of the use of its AI software for mail-in ballots in the presidential election. The company states that โno matter which candidate wins the 2020 election, the voting process will have changed forever. AI such as that provided by Parascript will become more commonplace in the never-ending battle to keep our elections safe and secure from fraud.โ
Parascript Post
Today, Parascript boasts clients inย numerous sectors, including finance, health care, logistics, and the public sphere, with one of their most prominent clients being the US Postal Service. Since 2011, Parascriptย has providedย the USPS with automated and bundled mail-sorting equipment that utilizes the companyโs optical character recognition (OCR) technology.
In addition to their multimillion-dollar contracts with the USPS, Parascript is partnered with another major USPS contractor, Lockheed Martin. While best known as a weapons manufacturer and a key fixture of the military-industrial complex, Lockheed Martin has also long been the contractor for the USPSโs remote-computer-reader system, which utilizes Parascriptโs software. Through its partnership with Lockheed, Parascriptโs software has been a component of USPSโ automated mail sorting processย since at least 2003.
Aย Parascript press releaseย stated the following regarding the Lockheed MartinโParascript relationship as it relates to this USPS system:
โParascript was recognized [by Lockheed Martin], in particular, for providing highly advanced and reliable Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software for handwritten address recognition and interpretation on letter mail pieces with its AddressScript technology. The primary purpose of the AddressScript OCR system is to work closely with Lockheed Martinโs advanced mail processing technology to meet and exceed requirements of the USPS.โ
Since 2017 Lockheed Martin has also provided the USPS with its โnext generationโ processing systems for packages and mail. These processing machines โare capable of automatically separating mail pieces, reading printed and handwritten addresses, and sorting packages, priority and bundled mail,โ according toย a Lockheed Martin press release. Parascriptโs AI software automatically identifies and sorts the addresses.
Notably, Lockheed Martin is one of the leading investors in the intelligence-linked cybersecurity firm Cybereason, which, for well over a year,ย has simulated various chaotic scenariosย for the 2020 US election. Cybereasonโs various simulations ended with Americansโ faith in the electoral process being utterly destroyed and subsequent declarations of martial law. Despite Cybereasonโs clear and enduring ties to the intelligence apparatus of a foreign power (Israel) withย a history of using backdoors in softwareto spy on the US government, Lockheed Martin has served asย the key conduitย that allowed Cybereasonโs cybersecurity software to gain access to some of the United Statesโ most classified systems. This election cycle, Lockheed Martin affiliatesย donated heavilyย to both candidates but gave nearly $27,000 more to Biden than to Trump.
In addition, Parascript is also partnered with Pitney Bowes, a private โwork-share partnerโ that sorts and processesย an estimated 15 billion pieces of mailย annually on behalf of the USPS. Pitney Bowes is also one of the leading companies that has pushed for the privatization of the USPS, evenย funding a reportauthored by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) that laid out a roadmap for transforming the USPS into a โpublic-private hybridโ in which all retail and processing components of the USPS would be privatized. Pitney Bowes โExemplar Mail Sorting Solutionโ utilizes Parascriptโs software, according toย the companyโs promotional material. More recently, Pitney Bowes has become heavily focused on e-commerce, developingย a very close relationship with eBay, which is owned by Silicon Valley billionaire and Democratic Party donorย Pierre Omidyar.
Pitney Bowesย has long offeredย an automated mail-in balloting system for elections, called Relia-Vote, which wasย used to sort mail-in ballotsย during the 2020 presidential election. However, Relia-Vote is now owned by Bluecrest, a spin-off of Pitney Bowes thatย has operated independentlyย of its parent company since 2018. Bluecrest isย currently ownedย by Platinum Equity, an investment firm founded and headed by Tom Gores. Goresย donated $100,000ย to Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016. It is unclear if the latest version of Relia-Vote, which was used in the 2020 presidential election, employs Parascriptโs AI software.
Given the use of Parascriptโs unproven AI software for the verification of signatures on mail-in ballots during this yearโs highly contested election, the near ubiquitous presence of this companyโs software on automated mail-sorting machines and its long-standing ties to the USPS and other prominent USPS contractors is worth noting.
Parascriptโs Powerful Partners
In addition to Lockheed Martin, Parascript enjoys partnerships with other prominent companies with long-standing ties to US intelligence. For instance, Parascript is a partner of Hewlett-Packard, a company whose close ties to the CIA and itsย venture capital arm In-Q-Tel,ย particularly under the leadership of Carly Fiorina, is an open secret.
Parascript is also partnered with IBM. Just last year,ย the CIA hiredย IBM Federal vice president Juliane Gallina to serve as the intelligence agencyโs chief information officer. In that position, Gallina oversees โthe CIAโs modernization efforts as well as making better use of the massive amount of data it possesses.โ In addition, IBM isย a major corporation driving the push to create โsmart citiesโย in the United States and globally, but to date they have focused much of their smart city effortsย on Chinaย and haveย long-standing tiesย toย Chinaโs political and economic elites. In addition, IBM isย one of the four sponsorsย of the Center for Presidential Transition, which issued a statement on Sunday (November 8)ย urging President Trump to concedeย to his rival Joe Biden. IBMย had previously sponsoredย Bidenโs cancer initiative for the Department of Veterans Affairs when he was vice president and, this election cycle,ย donated $640,801ย to Biden, compared to $139,373 to Trump.
In addition to its partnerships with HP and IBM, Parascript is also aย โgoldโ application development partnerย of Microsoft and has a long-standing relationship with the tech giant. Parascriptโs previous iteration as a company, Paragraph International, developed the first handwriting-recognition technology employed by Microsoft in the 1990s. When Paragraph International transformed into Parascript the partnership continued through application development, with Microsoftย fully integrating Parascriptโs image-recognition technology into its SharePoint software in 2014.
Notably, the two former Parascript software leads for developing USPS mail sorting now hold prominent positions at Microsoft. The development lead for Parascriptโs automated address-reading software,ย Mikhail Parakhin, is now Microsoftโs corporate vice president of technology.ย Max Lepikhin, who worked directly under Parakhin in overseeing the development of Parascriptโs mail-sortingโrelated software, currently works at Microsoft as a principal software engineer.
Microsoft executives have shown obvious support for Biden during this election cycle, withย nearly $2 millionย donated to him in his bid to oust Trump. In addition, the wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmerย donated the maximum amountย for an individual to the Biden campaign, while Microsoftโs current president, Brad Smith,ย hosted fundraisersย for Biden. Microsoft chief technology officer, Kevin Scott,ย also donatedย over $50,000 to support Bidenโs election efforts, and Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder who sits on Microsoftโs board, was one of Bidenโs largest donors in this campaign cycle, funneling over half a million to Biden, the DNC, and related PACs. Microsoft affiliates have donated to the RNC during this election cycle, but those donations are dwarfed by contributions to the DNC and Biden.
Currently, US election infrastructure is overseen by the Department of Homeland Securityโs Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), headed by Chris Krebs, who was a top Microsoft executive before taking on his current role. Under Krebsโs leadership, CISAโs 2020 election operations centerย includes representativesย from major Silicon Valley companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as unspecified โelection technologyโ companies. The center also works with the Center for Internet Security, which isย funded by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyarโs Democracy Fundย and has several members of the Obama administrationโs cybersecurity team and/or National Security Councilย on its board. Microsoft directly partnered with the Center for Internet Securityโs efforts related to the 2020 electionย this past Juneย and IBM isย also partneredย with the center.
Krebs, in his capacity as CISA director, has advocated for the implementation ofย Microsoftโs controversial ElectionGuard softwareย nationwide. ElectionGuard was co-developed by Microsoft and Galois, a cybersecurity contractor for the national security state whose only investors are the Pentagonโs Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research. Over the past two years, Microsoft has finalized agreements or is in the process of drafting agreements with the main voting-machine manufacturers in the United States. Microsoftย has publicly statedย on several occasionsย in just the past weekย that it expects ElectionGuard to be widely adopted nationwide for the 2024 presidential election and ostensibly all subsequent presidential elections. ElectionGuard recently received aย glowing reviewย from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute.
Stepan Pachikov and the DNCโs โRussian Interferenceโ Double Standard
Given its partners, it should be unsurprising that Parascriptโs founder and many employees have close ties to prominent Silicon Valley billionaires and are known for their support of the Democratic Party and their rejection of President Trump.
Paragraph International, it should be noted, was founded by a team of immigrants from the Soviet Union led by Stepan Pachikov and funded by American venture capitalists. As Paragraph International, it madeย several big dealsย with Apple and Microsoft in the 1990s before becoming Parascript in 1996.ย Most of Parascriptโs top executivesย are Russian citizens who have been with the company for decades, starting when it was Paragraph International.
Pachikov, as mentioned, is better known as a co-founder of Evernote. Evernoteโs founding CEO and current chairman, Phil Libin, hasย developed close tiesย to Amazonโs Jeff Bezos and LinkedInโs Reid Hoffman. Pachikov, like many in Silicon Valley, is an avid transhumanist whoย continues to promoteย the use and development of brain implants to โimprove memoryโ and โdreams of immortalityย by uploading all memories to artificial intelligence.โ In fact, Pachikovโsย original vision for Evernoteย was of a brain-machine interface that would allow a user to โremember everything.โ Inย a piece for Evernoteโs blogwritten by Pamela Rosen, Pachikov denotes his belief that โfuture technology [will exist] as a literal physical extension of the human brain, perhaps as an embedded chip,โ with Pachikov adding that โwe have no choiceโ when it comes to merging the human body with machines. โItโs just another type of integration,โ he asserts.
In addition to his embrace of transhumanism, Pachikov is a long-time donor to Democratic Party candidates,ย having contributedย to Obama in his presidential campaigns, Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign and previous senatorial campaigns, and to the Democratic Party in this election cycle. Pachikovโs distaste for Donald Trump was the subject of his 2016ย Bloombergย op-ed entitled โRussian-Americans Donโt All Back Trump.โ
Given this background, one thing that is particularly odd about Parascriptโs role in the 2020 election is that there were no complaints from the Democratic National Committee or any prominent โRussiagatersโ regarding a company that is founded and staffed largely by Russian citizens. Russians having such intimate involvement in the verification of mail-in ballots in a highly contested presidential election, especially when such technology has been accused of being biased against ethnic minorities and immigrants for whom English is a second language, is something one would think would evoke distress from those espousing concern about foreign interference in our electoral process.
The DNC and many prominent Democrats have put forward claims (discredited) of Russian election interference on behalf of Donald Trump (and against Hillary Clinton) during the 2016 election, withย many warningย in recent monthsย that โRussiansโ would seek to meddle in the 2020 contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Indeed, highly contested parts of the country, including Clark County, Nevada, used Parascriptโs software and were subsequently accused of election fraud, something that would presumably spark the ire of Russiagaters everywhere. Yet, since proponents of Russiagate are by and large supporters of Biden and critical of Trump, it appears that prime opportunities to breathe new life into the discredited Russiagate narrative are readily cast aside when it benefits their preferred candidate.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.